The system for submitting funding proposals has been completely transformed. Over the past year, the Research Office has implemented a state-of-the-art electronic proposal system, Cayuse. Cayuse SP replaces the paper Proposal Transmittal Form, and is now used for all proposals. Cayuse 424 is the Federal form set for both Grants.gov and Research.gov, and can also be used to prepare proposal budgets for proposals going to non-Federal sponsors.
Faculty should no longer be submitting paper-based proposals or the OSU Proposal Transmittal Form. Multiple training sessions have already been offered on the Cayuse products, and staff from the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) will continue to offer training sessions at least monthly. For information about training, please e-mail sponsored.programs@oregonstate.edu
OSP’s web-drop capability for Grants.gov packages is now disabled. These proposals (with the exception of the submissions for OSU’s Statewide Public Service funds) should be prepared through Cayuse 424 and routed through Cayuse SP. If you began proposal preparation in Cayuse 424 , contact an OSP staff member for assistance with proposal routing.
Aedra Reynolds, Dawn Wagner and Vickie Watkins support the College of Agricultural Sciences, the College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, the College of Forestry, and the units housed at the Hatfield Marine Science Center.
Eric Anundson, Cindy Rasberry and Lin Reilly support all other units.
Please join us in welcoming Kim Reese as our new friendly voice on the phone and smiling face at out front desk in Kerr 308B.
You will soon see a refreshed OSP website that should make our services and resources even more accessible.
Over the past year, the Research Office has implemented both Cayuse 424 and Cayuse SP. Cayuse SP replaces the paper Proposal Transmittal Form, and will be used for all proposals. Cayuse 424 is the Federal form set for both Grants.gov and Research.gov, and can also be used to prepare proposal budgets for proposals going to non-Federal sponsors. There are two approaching deadlines concerning proposal submission at OSU.
Effective July 1, 2012, all proposals will be routed through Cayuse SP.
Faculty should no longer be submitting paper-based proposals or the OSU Proposal Transmittal Form. Multiple training sessions have already been offered on the Cayuse products, and staff from the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) will continue to offer training sessions at least monthly. An additional session for June has been scheduled for June 22, 2012, in MU 213, from 10:00am – 11:30am. Faculty and staff can send an e-mail to sponsored.programs@oregonstate.edu to reserve a seat in this session.
Also effective July 1, 2012, OSP’s web drop capability for Grants.gov packages will be disabled.
These proposals (with the exception of the submissions for OSU’s Statewide Public Service funds) should be prepared through Cayuse 424 and routed through Cayuse SP.
Effective July 30, 2012, proposal routing in Cayuse 424 will be disabled, and all proposals will be routed using Cayuse SP.
Any faculty that have begun proposal preparation in Cayuse 424 can contact an OSP staff member for assistance with proposal routing.
The Office of Sponsored Programs team of Aedra Reynolds, Dawn Wagner and Vickie Watkins support the College of Agricultural Sciences, the College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, the College of Forestry, and the units housed at the Hatfield Marine Science Center.
The team of Eric Anundson, Cindy Rasberry and Lin Reilly support all other units.
This reminder has also been sent to Deans, Associate Deans, and unit heads.
Please contact Pat Hawk, Director of Sponsored Programs (541-737-6699 or patricia.hawk@oregonstate.edu ), if you have any questions.
Pat
Patricia A. Hawk, Director
Office of Sponsored Programs
The Cayuse web-based proposal development and submission system has been in use at OSU for five months now. It’s been exciting to train faculty and staff and to see the system work well. We’ve submitted proposals to the Army, ONR, DOE, DOT, NIFA, NIH, NOAA, USGS and NSF. We’ve also seen proposals reviewed and approved going to sponsors including Idaho State University, Portland State University, the International Whaling Commission, and Hewlett Packard.
Now that we’ve finished the discovery process, Cayuse staff will program our customized system requirements for Phase II, which brings some nice features that we are sure faculty will appreciate:
System-generated concurrent routing. Currently, Cayuse routes proposals in a linear fashion. With the Phase II implementation, a lead PI (or designee) starts the routing process and then the proposal will route concurrently between all units.
Drop-down menus for agencies and F&A rates on the proposal summary form, making it easier to complete the summary form and describe where the project takes place.
Division of indirect cost recoveries can be documented in the proposal record as part of the summary form.
Listing of project personnel (co-PIs) will take place on the summary form as well as the agency forms.
Additional data elements to assist in measuring international and industry partners.
Additional data elements to assist in accreditation requests.
Improved reporting capabilities.
These new features will not change how the Federal forms will be completed, and any additional training should be minimal. In addition, The link to the Cayuse website is now more prominent on Sponsored Programs’ website.
We anticipate that a version will be available for testing in the Office of Sponsored Programs in early January, with roll-out to campus in the spring.
While the Office of Sponsored Programs plans to retire the Proposal Transmittal Form at the end of June 2012, some forms will still be required and will remain on the Sponsored Programs website: F&A waivers; Attachment A – justification for direct charging clerical and administrative costs; and fabricated equipment.
The Research Office Quiz 2011 debuted at the University Day expo. Here it is again, in case you missed the chance to figure out the answers, or want another go at it – or hope to stump your colleagues.
The winner of our U.Day quiz participation drawing is
Mike Hinds, IT Communication Manager for Information Services!
Mike will receive his choice of a book by an OSU author.
If you are not Mike, yet participated at the event, thank you – your prize can be a subscription to The Spin on Research. Congratulations!
Match each numbered question with an answer from the list below.
Which coffee shops are nearest the Research Office?
2. What is the least turn-around time you should allow for proposal review at the Office of Sponsored Programs (to avoid turning into a pumpkin)?
3.What are the values that inform the new OSU Research Agenda?
4. What system, named after a horse bred by a Native American tribe, will make your funding life easier?
5.Which unit in the Research Office may help get the results of your work out there to benefit your neighbors?
6. Say your project includes a simple survey to be filled out by dog owners. Which office should you consult with?
7.Why do two Research Office leaders have names starting with R-I-C ?
8. What green technology is available for able-bodied people to get up to the Research Office?
9. How can you get the inside scoop on the OSU research enterprise?
Match each question with its answers . . . from among the options below
a. Three full business days
b. The Office of Research Integrity – Institutional Review Board (IRB)
c. The stairs
d. That’s a rich topic for research!
e. Java Stop II in the Valley Library; and shops in McNary Dining Hall
f. Subscribe to The Spin on Research blog
g. Most specifically The Office for Commercialization and Corporate Development
You may have seen the earlier posting about the selection of Cayuse as the vendor for OSU’s web-based proposal development and submission system. Just six weeks after signing the contract, Sponsored Programs successfully submitted a proposal to the U.S. Department of Education.
Easy as Pie
From Sponsored Programs’ perspective, it was very nice to be able to watch the first proposals work through the routing. Yet I was even more impressed with how quickly the proposals were assembled in Cayuse. I am sure faculty will love two features: the error-checking, and the ability to “transform” a proposal into a new submission. One of my frustrations with Grants.gov forms is having to start each proposal from scratch. Cayuse not only auto-populates common information such as name, address, e-mail, but it also allows you to leverage a submitted proposal for a new submission to another agency or a re-submission to the same agency.
Goodbye Back-Up Blues
Another important aspect of Cayuse: backing-up work. The system has three separate mechanisms: nightly to a dedicated network, every 30 minutes at the hosting facility in the Portland, Oregon area, and every 30 minutes at the dedicated replication servers in North Carolina. The company also provides us unlimited storage for all activity, and their hosted facility has a dedicated power fee, and engineering to avoid single points of failure in connectivity, power, fire or air conditioning. When Cayuse performs updates/upgrades or maintenance, they provide advance notice, and they do them over a weekend at off-peak hours.
Onward
We now start Phase II of this project, which will provide more functionality for proposal development and submission, as well as introduction of the complementary modules for both the Institutional Review Board (IRB) and Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) systems.
In our first steps to roll out Cayuse to the OSU research community, volunteering units will be part of the beta group to use it: the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute, and the Colleges of Veterinary Medicine and Agricultural Science. Sponsored Programs staff will set up training for faculty and staff .
I thank Dr. Teri Lewis in the Psychology Department for working with us on the first submission. She said she found the system “pretty smooth,” much easier to work with than Grants.gov forms. I also thank Dr. Matt Ito in Pharmacy for working with us to submit an NIH R15 proposal, and Dr. Banks in the Cooperative Institute for Marine Resource Studies for working with us to submit several NOAA continuation proposals.
I know I speak for Rick Spinrad and Rich Holdren when I say the Research Office is very excited to provide faculty and staff with this new and exciting tool for creating successful proposals!
I just finished another good trip to Washington DC (in spite of temperatures in excess of 95oF), where I had the opportunity to talk with a number of Federal agency representatives. Thanks to Kate Sinner (OSU Government Relations) for setting up all the meetings. Kate usually handles all of our Congressional relations, but with the changes in Congress regarding earmarks, we’ve made a concerted effort to focus even more attention on the Administration , and specifically on those agencies where we might have a lot of opportunities.
NIH campus
On this trip I focused on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and on the Department of Defense. OSU receives about $25M per year from NIH, and just under $3M per year from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR).
Specifically, I visited leadership at the following agencies: AFOSR (Tom Russell, Director) , NIH Headquarters (Sally Rockey, Director of Extramural Research), National Cancer Institute (Peter Greenwald, Deputy for Prevention), National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (Josie Briggs, Director), National Institute of General Medical Service (Jeremy Berg, Director), and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Hugh Auchincloss, Deputy Director). In addition, I had the opportunity to meet with Karina Edmonds, the coordinator of technology transfer for the Department of Energy.
Your program manager
All of these meetings were quite helpful to get a sense of where agencies want to go. Given the current budget uncertainties in the Federal government, any insight we can get should help us maintain our competitive edge. I think it’s fair to say that every agency representative that I met with wants to increase their engagement with our research community. Without exception, each of them implored me to have our faculty (junior and senior) develop – if they have not already done so – an active and meaningful dialogue with their program managers.
So my question for the researchers who read this blog is whether you’ve made that call recently. H ave you spoken with program managers at your relevant agency? Do they know what your interests are? If you’re not sure whom to call, talk to your colleagues or let me know.
Another message that came through loud and clear was that we have some real opportunities to drive the agency agendas. Dr. Russell at AFOSR defined a process by which we could develop some effective white papers to share with his program officers. This is something I’d like to pursue with several clusters of faculty. And, this is consistent with the next steps we need to develop consonant with the pending release of the OSU Research Agenda.
At DOE, Dr. Edmonds also made clear that her responsibility was to foster development of intellectual property, at the DOE Labs. From her standpoint, the partnering that we have with the labs (e.g. with PNNL through MBI and ONAMI) is a model for how to engage academia. So my questions, then, given our other relationships with DOE labs (NETL, NREL and Idaho National Lab, as examples): Are there opportunities for commercialization that we might want to push? Are there areas where we might want to build new partnerships with DOE labs, based on the potential for collaboration over new intellectual property?
I started the week in DC by sitting on a working group at the National Science Foundation, discussing the challenges of what NSF calls “unsolicited mid-scale research.” The National Science Board will be developing a report on this subject within the next year, and we should keep an eye out for that report.
The Research Office has selected the vendor for an electronic proposal development and electronic submission system for OSU. Cayuse, a company based in Beaverton, Oregon, created and supports a web-based tool that replaces manual processes for sponsored opportunities.
To be implemented at OSU in phases over the next six months, the Cayuse system will be used for all research funding proposals, federal as well as non-federal. Using standard web browsers, researchers download electronic grant opportunities directly from Grants.gov or Research.gov and prepare the proposals in the web application.
Tools
The system’s productivity features include tools for preparing multi-year and multi-PI budgets, uploading research plans, importing subcontractor subaward proposals and budgets, copying and transforming proposals (e.g., templates), and routing and approving proposals. OSU’s use of the system will also include linking with protocols of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) and the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), reducing duplication of effort and information.
“This state-of-the-art tool will enhance our research enterprise. I am confident that Cayuse, an Oregon-based company with exemplary experience, will deliver the solutions we have been seeking. OSU is the first institution of higher education in Oregon to take advantage of this product.
We thank everyone who provided input on the demo sites, and especially appreciate the efforts of Jodi Pitzer of Procurement and Contract Services, and the evaluation committee: Jan Auyong, Barbara Bond, Lois Brooks, Pat Hawk, Rich Holdren, Alex Sims, and Nicole Wolf. ”
- Rick Spinrad, Vice President for Research
“Our office processes approximately 2000 proposals each year. An especially exciting feature of Cayuse 424 is the multiple-level error-checking, so it will detect details that are sometimes impossible to catch manually due to inconsistencies in requirements, volume and time constraints. This should eliminate having proposals returned without
review because of technicalities. Ultimately, it will reduce time and paperwork for faculty and staff. When OSU is the lead on a multi-institutional proposal, our subcontractors will be able to use our system free-of-charge. Another plus is that researchers will be able to not only develop but also track the routing of a proposal through the university system and to the funding agency.”
-Pat Hawk, Director of the Office of Sponsored Programs
Implementation
Testing, training, and implementation will be by college or unit, with the schedule soon to be determined. Cayuse will provide training to Office of Sponsored Program staff on-site in June, 2011.
The Company
Cayuse, based in Beaverton, Oregon has been creating software to streamline grant proposal development since 1994. Cayuse 424 is used at approximately 100 institutions in the U.S. The company was selected by the National Science Foundation for development of its electronic submission format to FastLane via Research.gov. Cayuse was the first to implement Research.gov’s electronic submission service, which is available in the production release at OSU.
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The Office of Post Award Administration (OPAA) has updated its procedures for Principal Investigators to request no-cost extensions on sponsored agreements. The Organizational Prior Approval System (OPAS) form has been significantly revised to reflect the changes in procedure and to provide researchers and Business Centers with instructions related to these changes. This form will no longer be a dual purpose form; all no-cost extensions, not just those for awards which carry expanded authority provisions, will now be initiated with the revised form. Requests for approval of pre-award costs and for establishment of pending indexes will be initiated with a separate form, soon to be revised as well. The OPAS/No-Cost Extension form is required for all no-cost extensions and must be approved by your dean or department head.
The OPAA web site has been updated with the new OPAS/No Cost Extension form and instructions, as has the OSCAR list of downloadable forms. The completed and signed OPAS form should be sent to the Business Center review/approval prior to the deadline as stated on the form instructions and should include adequate justification for the extension. For further information, please contact your Business Center.
The Research Office hosted presentations and workshops on April 13, 2011, for faculty and staff to learn about the National Science Foundation. NSF representatives shared information that is specific about NSF, yet much of it is applicable in seeking sponsorship from other organizations.
Edited recordings of much of the event are available at
Mark Leid, Associate Dean for Scholarship of OSU’s College of Pharmacy, said, “The event was really helpful, especially in learning how to tailor grants for NSF - which is very different than what I usually do for NIH. I learned that the ‘broader impact’ piece for NSF is on equal footing with the science. I realized we have to learn more about broader impact, and we need to gather the information about how much of that we already do. The Directorate session I went to was lead by someone who is temporarily an NSF Program Officer, but primarily a university professor himself, so his perspective was helpful. ”
Some other take-home messages heard by OSU attendees are summarized below:
NSF returns many proposals unread – because of avoidable errors When developing a proposal, read and heed the instructions for submission
This year’s instructions may be new – don’t go by old information
Carefully follow those instructions
“The best way to learn to write proposals for NSF is to review proposals for NSF”
Consider becoming a reviewer. NSF needs thousands of them each year.
Consider reviews as mentoring – Persistence is important
Only 15% of proposals to NSF are accepted their first time.
Many more are successful upon resubmission – after the first review, and the suggestions are heeded.
Think big
In its merit review process, NSF values “creativity, originality, and transformative potential” - projects that change the fundamental way we think.
Think broader impact.
One of NSF’s two merit review criteria: ” What are the broader impacts of the proposed activity?”
Proposals must address this separately within the Project Summary and Project Description.
[Note: one OSU resource about opportunities broader impact is available from Pre-College Programs[download pdf]- an upcoming entry in this Blog will address this issue more fully]
Attendance
from OSU ( numbers of participants by College or other)
BUS 2 CAS 28 COS 35 COAS 7 COF 16 COE 18 CLA 14 PHARM 3 CoED 4 HHS 7
Centers 7 Library/IS 2 Admin 15
from Other Institutions
UO 8 PSU 11 WOU 6 OIT 5 EOU 1 OUS 1
Willamette 4 Lewis & Clark 3 U Portland 1 Linfield 2
Princeton 1 NCSU 1 UNev-Reno 1 USDA – ARS 1
Live streaming was accessed remotely by 53 computers, and several people submitted questions via the on-line chat.
The Research Office continues to be a resource for assistance and consultation on proposal development and submission.
Thanks to Media Services for audio and visual support, and to Donna Williams of CH2MHill Alumni Center for event coordination
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The Research Office and its various units continue to be a resource for assistance and consultation on proposal development and submission [link to RO website]
about the event would help spread the word. If Rick, Rich, and Pat would each please give me a brief impression –
What are 2 – 4 of the most important take-home messages for OSU faculty that you got from this day?
Mine might be (not worded well – just drafted here)
· Read the instructions for submission – this year’s, not old ones
o Then Follow those instructions – many proposals are returned unread because of what the NSF director calls “stupid” mistakes
· Consider becoming a reviewer. “the best way to learn to write proposals for NSF is to review proposals for NSF”
· Consider reviews as mentoring – only 15% of proposals are accepted their first time – %0% when re-submitted after review suggestions – persistence is important
· In their merit review process, NSF is valuing “creativity, originality, and transformative potential” - projects that change the fundamental way we think
I will include a link to the recordings of the sessions on the blog.
I’ve asked the recorders for data on how many people live-streamed, and where they were from
If any photos were taken at yesterday’s sessions, I would appreciate them to possibly add to blog
The Office of Sponsored Programs has completed the evaluation phase of systems by various vendors for web-based proposal submission. The Research Office will keep the campus apprised of developments once a vendor has been selected and negotiations finalized.
Thanks to everyone who provided input on the demo sites. A special thanks to the evaluation committee: Jan Auyong, Barbara Bond, Lois Brooks, Pat Hawk, Rich Holdren, Alex Sims, and Nicole Wolf, and to Jodi Pitzer of Procurement and Contract Services, who provided much-appreciated support and guidance.
